Throwing Down In The Gauntlet

{Undisclosed Hotel - Baltimore, MD} I woke with a start, struggling to catch my breath I rolled onto my side and then managed my way into a sitting position. I shook my head, the sweat continued to run down the sides of my face. I grab a hand towel from the dawer of the nightstand and bury my face in it. I look at the clock, it’s two a.m. “Son of a bitch.” I stand up and run my hand across the sheet, soaked completely, “Of course.”. There was no going back to sleep in the bed after those nightmares and I knew it. I stood up straight once again, looking up at the ceiling, I allowed my long dark hair to fall straight back. I collected the now wet mop of hair, grabbing a hair tie I secured my hair in a ponytail. Opening the slider that leads to the balcony, I let the cold air wash over me. It doesn’t take long until I’m a shivering mess. I push the slider closed again and sit down heavily in the recliner near the door. “Fuck me…”, is all I can manage as I try to rub away the thorbbing in my temples. The headaches that followed were almost as bad as the nightmares themselves. Then would come the muscle spasms and the cramping in my calves. I stand up and walk across to the kitchen area. I rummage through the cabinet and find that ibuprofen, that would at least help with the inflammation and the headache. A light tapping came from the door, “Mac, are you okay?”, the sound of Maggie’s muffled voice came through. Bare from the waist up, I go to the door and let her in. “Hey Maggs.”, is my tired reply. She enters the room quietly, following me back to the kitchen. I take a couple of tylenol and chase them with some water from the tap. “I’m fine Maggie, just bad dreams”. She nods, “Nightmares are more likely, judging from the amount of hollerin you were doing just a bit ago.”. “Haiti?”, she asks in an even tone. “ I nod in agreement, “Haiti, Gitmo, Kandahar, that last year I was in….a huge fucking nightmare.”. She looks at me, “It didn’t get better after you took that discharge Mac.”. “I know Maggs, I followed 74 pretty closely for a while.”, I sigh and walk back into the main room. I grab a shirt, pulling it on from over my head. “Please Maggie, sit down.”, I point to the couch and the chair. “Ladies choice.”. She chuckles at me, “Always the gentleman.”, she quips as she opts for the couch. “It’s always the same isn’t it? Flashes from place to place to place, focussed on the things we were ordered to do?”, she asks quietly. I nod, “They always called it….collateral damage.”, I say in a more quiet voice than I intend. “And always based on intel gathered by the alphabet boys.”, Maggie says in a stern voice. It was always the same for those of us involved in forward deployments, the CIA provided the intel for the operation. We knew things from those deployments that the rest of the world had no idea was going on. “The shit we saw and the things we were ordered to do. It’s amazing that none of us were tried for war crimes Maggs.”, I say in my blunt force trauma way of speaking. She sighs and stands up, “Likely because we know where the bodies are buried.”. I study her for a moment as she paces, a noticeable limp, “cramping in your calves?”. She looks at me and smiles, “Ibuprofen?”. I return the smile, “In the cabinet in the kitchen.”. While she went looking for the ibuprofen, I sat there and thought about our past together. Our battalion, the sea bees, were special forces trained without the advanced training of the seals. The expectation was still the same, follow orders to the letter, no questions asked. If the American people really knew why we were in places like Kandahar, and the involvement of agencies like the central intelligence agency. They would likely lose their shit. The operations in those countries were to first and foremost extract operatives that the agency had placed there and make it look like local resistance groups who were slaughtered wholesale were attacked by the local authorities. “You Okay Maggie?”, I say as I stand up and that’s when I hear the thud. “Fuck”, is all I can say as I enter the kitchen. I scramble to grab my phone and dial 911, she’s passed out on the floor and she’s not breathing. I put the phone on speaker as I wait for the operator and I begin cpr on Maggie. The operator finally picks up as I administer the compressions. My daughter Jules, my angel of mercy arrives to spell me while we wait on the arrival of the EMTs. It doesn’t take long before they enter the room and begin working on Maggie. Several long minutes pass and then amazingly she starts to respond. She has a pulse and then a coughing fit. Finally she breathes on her own. Raggedly at first but then more steady. I hug my daughter close, “Thank you for showing up when you did.”, she smiles up at me. “I knew something was wrong when Aunt Maggie didn’t come back right away.”. The EMT looks from Jules back to Maggie then back at me, “You’re related?”, he asks. I smile at him, “My family is a bit complicated.”, is all I say as they raise the stretcher. “I know that the local authorities have given a do not resuscitate order, thank you for ignoring that. Maggie is family in every sense of the word.”. The EMT nods at me, “My oath supersedes anything a fucking politician has to say.”. They wheel Maggie out and Jules and I follow. ***

“What in the world would cause two men, who normally operate alone, to come together and fight through a gauntlet of other teams to win tag team gold? Why would the defending Baltimore City Champion wrestle two times in one night? Why would I risk that? What would make me think that I can trust Trent Steel? Wait… What? That’s right, I invoked his name. The same man that I’ll be defending my title against, is also my tag team partner for the Gauntlet. I’ll try to explain all of this, although I don’t think I have the time or the crayons needed to explain it to Raab and his crew. Not to mention others who may or may not be in this thing. As to why we came together as a team. It’s not so very complicated, if you remember back, a certain foul mouthed bitch named Mitaxia was running around wearing the faces of others. First she wore Trent’s face and then the face of my son. So, we have the theme of a common enemy going. Dig it? Yeah, me too. So there’s that, more importantly though is when you have two men who have a similar way of thinking and doing things. Now, that boys and girls is where things get really fucking interesting don’t you think? I probably just scared half the roster with that comment. You’d have to know my history to understand that statement. Trent does. Why would I risk my title defense in order to enter this Gauntlet? You’re under the impression that I’m concerned about it to begin with. What if I told you, that risk was limited at best. What if I told you that I always have a plan, my contingencies have contingencies. My risk is very limited to say the least. I’m not sweating it and I ain’t scared. As for why we are entering the fray as a team, mostly it’s because we can. It’s not like any of these fucks can stop us from taking the gold away from Raab’s little boys. It doesn’t matter who we face, whether it’s a team from Paragon or Marlowe and Hooch. We simply don’t care, we don’t care who it is or what they think or feel. They’re simply next in line for an ass whoopin. And that boys and girls is all the time, and crayons I have for right now. ***

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate hospitals? Even with the restrictions being lessened, security was tight. A combination of police officers and commissioned security guards is what awaited us at the hospital. Fortunately for me, Jules had remembered my emergency bag and I was able to actually put pants on in the parking garage. Now we stand in front of the emergency room being interrogated by local law enforcement. I already had mine and Jules’ drivers licenses out and handed them to the officer as we approached. He looked at them, “Texas?”, he scans the I.D.s and hands them back. A few moments later the scanner chimed. “No existing warrants, Mr. Bane, what is your business here tonight?”. Before I can say something snarky, my daughter is to my rescue again. “My Aunt Maggie was brought in just a moment ago. She collapsed at the hotel. We just want to make sure she’s okay.”. The officer studies her for a moment, “black female that was just brought in?”. “We’re a complicated family.”, I respond before Jules can. The officer to his credit, didn’t make a smart assed comment, he just smiled and waved us through. “I hope your Aunt Maggie is okay.”, he said as Jules and I moved forward and through the increased security. We made our way to the information desk, Jules gave her the information on Maggie. The nurse looked at me and then Jules, “You're the immediate family of Miss Fletcher?”. I smile, “Yes Ma’am, I’ve been listed as her next of kin since nineteen ninety five, we were in the Navy together.”. She scans her records, “Oh, there you are, Mr. Bane.”. She hands me my drivers license back. “She’s just around the corner, third room on the left.”. “Thank you ma’am.”, I say in the most polite and respectful tone I can manage when addressing the Spanish Inquisition. After we were out of earshot, “Because no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.”, Jules says under her breath. I laugh as we walk down the hallway, “Oh, that’s a proud Daddy moment right there kid.”. She smiles and then winks at me as we continue to Maggie’s room. The door is closed when we find her room, so I tap lightly on it and wait for a moment. A nurse opens the door for us and motions us in. She leads us to where Maggie is resting comfortably. She opens one eye and smiles, “About time you got here brother mine.”. The nurse smiles, “The doctor should be in shortly.”. Then leaves the room. There’s a chair near the bed, so I take a seat and grab Maggie’s hand, “Have they told you anything yet?”, I ask her. She shakes her head weakly, “No, not yet. They only said I was lucky. Whatever the hell that means.”. I chuckle, “If it weren’t for your niece I don’t know that we’d be having this conversation.”. Jules blushes at the insinuation and the kind words. “Oh Mac, she blushes so pretty.”, Maggie smiles at Jules, “Thank you honey for helping your dad.”. Jules returns her smile, “I’m glad I could help Aunt Maggie, but please, take it easy and rest.”. The doctor entered the room and surveyed the scene, “Miss Fletcher, how are you feeling?”. “ “Better”, she says, eyeing the doctor warily. “I’m Doctor Park, I don’t know if you remember me from the ER?”, he states in his business like tone. She nods, “I remember, you had me hooked up to all kinds of crap.”. He smirks, “Well yes, all of that crap gave me a pretty good look at what was going on with you.”. He looks at me, “Family?”. “We are Maggie’s only family, well all that’s left of it anyway.”. He seems to accept that, “Good, Miss Fletcher, you’ve had a mild heart attack.”. I watch as Maggie sets her jaw, you can see the anger and the heart rate and blood pressure monitor starts to climb. The Doctor sees it too and holds up his hands in surrender. “I was dead on the floor of the kitchen, Mild? You’ve lost your fucking mind.”. I give her hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry Miss Fletcher, I wasn’t trying to make you angry. There’s no note here about what condition you were in prior to arriving here.”. “My daughter and I brought her back, the EMTs loaded her in the ambulance afterward.”, I say in a flat even tone. He nods, accepting the answer, “She was lucky to have you both on hand to do CPR then. Especially with the cities do not resuscitate order in place.”. I want to punch this jackass in the face but I let it go. “Will you be the attending physician tomorrow morning?”, I ask him. Doctor Park, “No, I’ll be going off the clock tonight, there will be a new doctor in the morning.”. I nod and let him go about his paperwork and he finally leaves the room. “What a jackass.”, I say loud enough that the nurse coming back into the room hears me. She snickers at hearing me say that, “He’s a real gem of a man.”. “You must mean cubic zirconia.”, is Maggie’s response. This also gets a laugh from the nurse, “Honey, yes.”, she takes Maggie’s vitals before leaving the room once again. ***

“As tag team champions, The Monstimals have got to be shitting themselves right now. Think about it. Your the champs, you took someone else's half of the titles. Then the boss tells you that you are entered into a gauntlet match to defend those titles. Oh, and by the way you won’t know who your defending against until showtime. That guy that you took his half of the tag titles away from? That person now has a new tag team partner. A young woman who is hungry as hell for her first taste of gold. Him? He’s hungry for revenge. You took something from him that he earned. Hungry and angry are a hard combination to beat, wouldn’t you think? No, you boys don’t think, you don’t have the ability or capacity. If you did, you would’ve done things the right way. Not that you fools even have an idea what that looks like. So, you can bet that they will enter this gauntlet, the opportunity is too perfect for them. An unknown team enters the fray and takes it all? That’s a movie script right there. Holly Wood couldn’t write it up any better if they tried. There is one tragic Shakespearean flaw in that movie script. A simple flaw in the logic around that being something achievable. Although that would be the fairy tale ending for Mr. Marlowe, there’s a plot twist in that movie script. That plot twist even has a name, are you ready to hear it? Ultra Violence Incorporated Mac Bane and Trent fucking Steel. You heard that correctly, we are the team that was not accounted for. We are that plot twist that you never saw coming. Two men, who found a common purpose, a common enemy if you will. It’s not necessarily the current tag team champions. Before I go off on that particular tangent though, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk a little about our current champions. The two men in Overton and McPherson who hold those titles. Overton; he’s young, mid twenties rockin a dad bod like no one’s business. It’s really very sad, that young and so little regard for the image you present to viewers. It takes most men a good twenty years of living to abuse their bodies that much. Go you. I’ve a feeling that we will see Su and ZQ enter this tournament. I personally took the Baltimore City Championship from them, I’ll also be looking to make sure that they don’t get a shot at the tag team titles. I’m also hoping that The Empty finds a tag team partner and tries his luck again. At the end of the day, it simply doesn’t matter who we have to go through in order to get those straps. When Isolation is over, the one thing that will be on everyone's mind and what they’ll be talking about? They’ll all be talking about how they saw the beginning, the founding of Ultra-Violence Incorporated. The former champions will be nothing but a whisper in the wind, forgotten in a moment, barely a footnote in wrestling history.